1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to an ultrasound imaging device, and more particularly to an ultrasound imaging device and a method of forming a 3-dimensional ultrasound image using an adaptive filter.
2. Background Art
An ultrasound imaging device has become an important and popular diagnostic tool due to its non-invasive and non-destructive nature. The ultrasound imaging device may form an ultrasound image by using ultrasound characteristics such as reflection, scattering and absorption when the ultrasound signals are propagated into tissues of a human body. Since the reflection and scattering of the ultrasound signals simultaneously occur in the target object, speckle noises may be included in forming ultrasound image data. The speckle noises may degrade a 3-dimensional ultrasound image. Also, boundaries between the organs and a background, which are important portions for diagnosis, may not be correctly displayed due to the speckle noises. Thus, the speckle noises may be burdensome in analyzing the 3-dimensional ultrasound image and examining the organs in the 3-dimensional ultrasound image.
Recently, various types of filters have been introduced to reduce the speckle noises in the 3-dimensional ultrasound image. However, the conventional filters may filter the 3-dimensional ultrasound data without considering an amount of data in data acquisition directions (i.e., axial, lateral and elevation directions) to reduce the speckle noises. As such, a loss of the ultrasound image data may occur during the filtering. Thus, the 3-dimensional ultrasound image may be distorted due to the data loss.